The Blackbirder

Chapter 10

Elizabeth invited Billy Bird in, led him into the kitchen, made a pot of chocolate herself, since there was no one left in the house to do it for them. They sat at the big table in the kitchen-somehow it seemed appropriate to entertain Billy there rather than in the more formal sitting room or drawing room-and she poured out their cups.

Over the steaming brown drink Billy told Elizabeth in some detail (and, she guessed, some augmentation to the truth) about his last voyage to Madagascar, his wrecking his ship on the reefs off that island coast, while sailing the Pirate Round.

Billy Bird had a true sailor’s knack for yarning, and Elizabeth listened to the tale with interest, but her mind was mostly elsewhere.

“So I said to the fellow…” Billy paused. “Lizzy, are you attending at all? You seem quite distracted, and this a tale the likes of which you will not hear again soon. I do hope you are not thinking on your precious Marlowe. I’ll warrant he has not had half the adventures that I have.”

“Faith, Billy, there is no one could be more interesting than you. But, yes, I am distracted. Thinking about my people. Wherever could they have gone?”

“Ah, your African is a crafty one, can take to the woods and disappear whenever they choose. Can’t find them unless you have dogs. The people here think these Negroes are docile and broken, but that is a dangerous mistake.”

“No, Billy, I fear you are wrong. Perhaps those natives in the jungle are of such a kidney, but our people here are like children, sometimes. I fear they cannot shift for themselves. What if now they have lost themselves in the woods?”

Billy shook his head. “I have sailed with many black men, you know, and they are as fierce as any. More so, in fact, because if they are caught there is no chance of pardon. It’s the gallows for them, between the flux and flood of tides.”

“Thank you, Billy. You put my mind at ease.”

“Forgive me, dear Lizzy. I meant only to say that you should not worry. Your people will be fine.”

Then, as if in answer to this prediction, a knock on the kitchen door, just a light rap, and then the door swung open enough for Caesar to stick his head warily through.

“Mrs. Marlowe? You all right?”

“Yes, Caesar, yes!” Elizabeth said, jumping to her feet, greatly relieved to see the old man. “Come in, come in! Wherever did you go? Where are the others?”

“We went into the woods, ma’am. They can’t find us, without they have dogs.”

“I should not be so sure. And in any event, they will be back with dogs, and soon, I fear.”

“That’s right,” Caesar agreed. He couldn’t have heard Dunmore ’s threat, he just seemed to accept this as a given. “Some of them others, they down at the houses, gettin’ their things together. I come back for mine, and Queenie and Tom and Plato is outside. Poor Lucy’s still in a state. Queenie says she’ll get her things as well, if that’s all right with you, ma’am?” Queenie was the cook for Marlowe House, Tom and Plato the occasional houseboys.

“Of course, let them come in.”

Caesar opened the door, beckoned to the unseen people, and a moment later Queenie and Tom and Plato shuffled in, sheepish, apparently unsure of their reception.

“Oh, Queenie, boys, I am so relieved to see you,” Elizabeth said, and that seemed to go far to ease their minds.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, for all this trouble-,” Queenie began, but Elizabeth shook her head, interrupted, saying, “It is never your fault. It’s that bastard Dunmore, has been him all along. But whatever are we to do?”

“Well, ma’am…,” Caesar began, glanced at the others for encouragement. Queenie nodded her head.

“Well, Mr. Marlowe always said we was free, so we reckoned we’d head to the woods, hide out until we can come out safe again. Ain’t like we’re running, ’cause Mr. Marlowe, he always say we can go if we want…”

None of the freed slaves had ever tested this promise. None had wanted to, and they understood as well that there were not many places that they could go.

Caesar was clearly unsure of how their plan would be received.

“Of course. There is nothing else for it,” Elizabeth said, to the others’ obvious relief. “First we shall need food…”

“Beg pardon, beg pardon…” Billy Bird stood, wiped his mouth elaborately with his napkin. “Pray, forgive me, but these are intrigues I do not need to hear. By your leave, my dear Lizzy, I shall be off. I am at the King’s Arms for another fortnight or so, should you need my services. Until then”-he stepped around the table, took up Elizabeth ’s hand and kissed it with a flourish-“I say adieu!”

He grinned, nodded to the others, and was gone. Elizabeth did not think he was gone forever.

“Food, ma’am?” Queenie brought her back to the present.

“Yes, yes. Take whatever you can. You know better than me what is in the pantry. Plato, run down to the slave…your quarters there and bring back five or six more men. We shall take all the guns and swords and such from the drawing room, and the extra powder and shot from the cellar.”

“Guns, ma’am? Mr. Marlowe’s guns?”

“Yes, the guns that belong to Mr. Marlowe and myself. Do you not see a need for them?”

Caesar and Tom exchanged glances. This was a largesse they had not expected. “Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Tom. “We surely could use them, if you could see fit to part with them.”

“Of course. Now let us round these things up and be gone. I do not know when Dunmore and those other sodding bastards might be back. There is not a moment to lose.”

Elizabeth felt strong, in charge of the situation, and it was a good feeling. Things could not proceed without her to organize them, to issue orders; these poor people would be in an utter state of confusion. She understood how Thomas felt, standing on his quarterdeck, seeing things happen in reaction to his spoken word.

Queenie and Caesar turned their attention to the pantry and the cellar. Elizabeth led Tom to the drawing room where a majority of the guns were kept, everything from battered old muskets to lovely fowling pieces and matching braces of pistols. Edged weapons too: swords, cutlasses, hunting knives. Thomas had taken the best weapons with him on the Elizabeth Galley, but he had amassed enough of a collection over the years that there was still an impressive arsenal remaining.

They stacked the weapons up on the fainting couch. Soon Plato joined them, leading a half dozen men from the former slave quarters who gathered up the weapons in strong arms, the food as well, and packed it all in sacks they had brought with them.

Elizabeth raced up to her dressing room, stuffed her warm cloak and other clothes into a pillowcase, then hurried down the stairs again and out back where the others were waiting.

“Very well. Let us go,” she said.

Embarrassed silence, looks shot back and forth. Then Queenie said, “Bless you, ma’am, you ain’t figuring on coming with us?”

“Of course I am.”

“This ain’t your problem, Mrs. Marlowe. Ain’t no reason you should suffer this.”

“Of course it is my problem, it is all of our problem. I most certainly am coming with you. Now let us go.”

More looks, a few shrugs, and then the men hefted the sacks of food, slung muskets over shoulders, jammed pistols in belts and they all headed back toward the former slave quarters and the woods beyond.

Elizabeth could not have let them go alone. Billy Bird’s assurances aside, she knew that they could not survive without her. These simple people needed her to show them the way.

They took to the woods, hiking hard along trails that Elizabeth could not even discern. Her skirts caught on the brush, and she found herself tripping over obstacles half hidden by the bracken, but she pushed on, keeping pace, unwilling to let her people face these hardships without all of the help she might be able to offer.

They came to a clearing, an open place in the woods where the grass grew waist high over a half acre or so. “This looks a fine place to stop,” Elizabeth suggested. “Set up some sort of camp right here?”

“Well, Mrs. Marlowe, you right, no doubt,” said Plato. “But maybe we best get a little further from Marlowe House. We ain’t but a mile or so, and easy tracking through them woods.”

“A mile?” Plato had to be wrong about that; they were three miles at least, but Elizabeth did not want to argue. “Very well, let us go on.”

It was almost dark, twilight after the long daylight hours of summer, when they came to another clearing, not unlike the first. Where they were in relation to Marlowe House, how far they had walked, Elizabeth had not a clue.

But her people obviously did. It was not an empty field that greeted them, but one with a few crude tents already pitched, and firewood stacked up in a ring of stones. Four or five of the plantation’s former slaves were there already. Three horses were staked out near the edge of the woods.

There were greetings all around, hugs, kisses, and from those who had come ahead, somewhat disingenuous enthusiasm at finding that Elizabeth had joined them.

And once it was full dark, once smoke could not be seen over the trees, the fire was stoked up and there was roast chicken and corn bread and potatoes. Elizabeth ate with an appetite she had not felt in some time. Her feet were raw and swollen and when she surreptitiously pulled off her shoes and stockings she saw that they were bleeding.

She could feel the muscles in her legs cramping up. It was not the distance, she did not think, however far they might have walked, but the hiking over broken ground that she was unaccustomed to.

Queenie came over, asked how she did, piled up some sacks filled with some soft thing for her to lean against. Took Elizabeth ’s feet in hand and rubbed them with a pungent ointment. Elizabeth wanted to protest, to insist that she not be treated like some lady of the manor, but Queenie’s ministrations felt so good, and her feet hurt so much, that she kept her objections to herself.

“How is Lucy?” Elizabeth asked.

“Not so good, ma’am. She’s terrible worried about King James. Had a notion something would happen, and now she blames herself for not stopping him.”

“I’ll come and see her.”

“That would do a power of good, I reckon.”

Elizabeth stood, hobbled across the field to where Lucy lay in her tent. Her eyes were red, swollen from crying. She looked a wreck.

“Lucy?”

“Oh, Mrs. Marlowe!” Lucy got to her knees, threw her arms around Elizabeth ’s neck. She began to sob again.

“Lucy, Lucy…James is a clever one, you know that, he’ll get through this…”

“Oh, Lord, Mrs. Marlowe, why ever didn’t I stop him? I knew something was going to happen…”

“Now, Lucy, come along. You know you could not have stopped him. James is too proud to listen to anyone’s warnings, you know that. Especially a woman’s.” It was true. Nor was James alone in that. James and Thomas, two of a kind.

The people-thirty or more, in all-were circled around the fire, the orange light dancing off dark skin. Someone began to sing, soft, a rhythmic tune, words that Elizabeth could not understand. In her dumb fatigue it took her some moments to realize it was an African song, the words in the language to which the singer was born.

Lucy let off her embrace, sat back down on the blanket spread on the ground, and watched with Elizabeth, sniffling now and then.

The singing went on, high and clear, and at certain places the others would join in, a chorus, all their voices coming soft together, the beat steady and hypnotic.

They all knew it, though to Elizabeth ’s certain knowledge they were not all of the same tribe. Indeed, some of the younger ones had been born in the New World, had never been to Africa at all.

Extraordinary, Elizabeth thought. They had already created some kind of an organized home, there on that grassy patch of wilderness. She imagined they were well versed in this, creating community fast, making a home wherever they landed, after the experience of being torn away from their real homes and villages.

She closed her eyes, let the warm sleep creep over her, felt herself being carried away with the rhythm of the singing. She began to understand, on some level deeper than conscious thought, why Thomas felt it was too dangerous a thing to try to hold such people in bondage, why Bickerstaff felt it was an abomination before God.

King James heard the lookout aloft sing out, and then Madshaka grinned wide, said, “He say he see another ship, away, away.”

Madshaka turned and called down the deck, rapid bursts of language, one after another. Looks of relief, looks of anticipation, gratitude at the approach of salvation, fore and aft.

“I tell them, we see another ship. Get more food now. They very happy.”

James nodded. He resisted looking over the side, knew that they would not be able to see the ship yet.

Instead he looked aloft at the baggy sails, the shrouds and stays where the tar had worn away and the cordage shone white in patches like dried bone. This was a tired old ship. Chase was not possible. She could never run another ship down. The strong and brave men on her crew might overwhelm a victim, might take her easily enough, but the trick would be in getting close enough to board.

James turned without a word, began to pace quickly up and down the quarterdeck in an unconscious imitation of Thomas Marlowe. Think, think, think. Whipping his thoughts into some order, like turning a rabble into a ship’s crew.

Priorities.

First, was this a ship worth attacking, was it a ship they might hope to carry? Was it a man-of-war, a slaver, a merchantman?

He stopped pacing, turned to Madshaka, who was waiting patiently for instruction. “I am going aloft, see what I can of this ship. You get the heads of the tribes together here. Tell them what we talked about, how we take this ship for the food, just the food.”

“I tell them. But they want to vote on it, you know. Like the pirates do. Like we talk about.”

James paused, scowled. Anger sparked like a flash in a pan. Damn it all, damn their hobbling votes.

But, of course, Madshaka was right. He had been happy to have the full responsibility lifted before, when he did not want to make a decision. Now that he knew what course he wished to take he was not so happy to have his authority questioned.

So damn me too, for a false bastard.

“You right. You tell them what we talked about, make them understand we got to just take food. They can vote, but you try and see they vote right.”

“I tell them,” Madshaka assured him.

James stepped toward the shrouds, paused, turned back. Met Madshaka’s eyes. “You tell them.”

“I tell them.” Madshaka was not smiling now.

James held his gaze for a second more. “Good.” He picked up the one remaining telescope and climbed into the main shrouds and then up aloft.

He gained the crosstrees and looked south in the direction that the lookout was pointing. They were in an area where one might expect ships of all kinds. Just the day before, James had thought he had heard gunfire to the west of them, broadsides and single guns going off. But it had been very faint, too faint to be certain. It had lasted about an hour and then there had been nothing more.

He had not bothered to mention it to the others.

Now he had the distant ship in sight and he raised up the telescope and looked through. It was not a very powerful glass, and there was a crack in the object lens, which was no doubt why it was left behind, but it did give James a somewhat improved view.

She was three or four miles away, downwind, but not directly. Ship rigged, about the size of the tobacco ships that sailed from the Chesapeake, perhaps a bit bigger. But a man-of-war? He really did not know. Climbing aloft he had thought that it would be obvious, but now looking at the ship he realized that he could not tell.

He lowered the glass, continued to stare south, his mind working on this new problem. Attack or flee? He pushed his thoughts into order.

Either this ship was a man-of-war or it was not, and he could not tell

one way or another.

If they attacked the ship, there was a chance they might all be killed.

If they did not get food in a day or so, then people would most definitely start to die.

The options were possible death versus certain death. There really was no decision. He stuck the telescope in his shirt and headed down again.